by Arjen Boin and Martin Lodge
Political leaders everywhere face stark choices that will define the social and economic future of their countries. They must decide if and how to wind-down the societal lockdowns that we have witnessed across the world. They do so against a background of widespread anxieties. Economic collapse awaits should there not be a rapid resumption of economic life. But a relaxation of ‘lockdown’ measures can have dire consequences: a ‘second wave’ might stretch state capacities even further than we have witnessed thus far...
by Lydie Cabane, Assistant Professor, Leiden University, ISGA
The current coronavirus crisis exposes the challenges the European Union (EU) face in providing joint and timely responses to large-scale pandemics. Although the EU has adopted rather rapidly a series of swift and significant responses to the related economic downturn, its responses to the public health, medical and social crises was slower. Member states unilaterally adopted a series of uncoordinated border closures, varying confinement and testing strategies, and national measures limiting the free circulation of masks point to insufficiencies, that limited the EU’s effectiveness in combatting the disease, and created threats to the well-functioning of the single market and of the Schengen zone...
By Arjen Boin and Martin Lodge
We are in crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing an escalating number of victims and a free-falling global economy. It is likely to get much worse before we will see any improvements. COVID-19 is emerging as the ultimate test for political leaders. Competing views exist as to whether national political leaders are ahead or behind ‘the curve’ of fast-changing dynamics...
By Nick Sitter (Central European University and BI Norwegian Business School)
On 9 March 2018 the prime ministers of the three Baltic states announced that they would not back any attempt to censure Poland over democratic backsliding. Coming on top of Hungarian assurances that Budapest would veto any attempt to sanction Warsaw under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, and the Bulgarian government’s concern that a move against Poland would cause ‘sleepless nights’ in Sofia, this meant that the Polish government could rest easy. Under Article 7, the Council would need 22 votes simply to determine that there is a ‘clear risk of a serious breach’ of the rule of law...
By Maja Kluger Dionigi, Think Tank Europa
The European Commission’s recent roadmap for completing the European Monetary Union (EMU) suggests increased involvement of parliaments in EU economic governance. For example, the Commission proposes to formalise the economic dialogue, create a European Minister of Economy of Finance accountable to the European Parliament (EP), and integrate the Fiscal Compact into EU law...
By András Bíró-Nagy
Democratic backsliding has become a top issue in European politics, not just among leaders who have started to realise recently that inaction might undermine the credibility of the European Union, but also in the international media as for now it seems evident that the construction of illiberal regimes in Hungary and Poland is fuelled by EU money...
Nick Sitter (Central European University)
Democratic backsliding has become a hot topic in the EU, not just because some states pursue policies that contravene their commitments to democracy and the rule of law, but because the EU is poorly equipped to deal with it. But what does democratic backsliding actually mean? This blog offers a short answer: the twelve institutional aspects of democratic backsliding...
Asya Metodieva (CEU) and Nick Sitter (CEU/BI)
It is the Bulgarians’ turn. When the Bulgarian government took over the EU’s rotating Presidency of the Council on 1 January, it was confronted with both a potential crisis and a golden opportunity to clean up the image of the country known to be among the poorest and the most corrupt among the EU’s member states...
Elisabeth Bakke (University of Oslo) and Nick Sitter (Central European University)
Czech elections – let alone Czech presidential elections – do not always command international attention. Compared to Hungary and Poland – where the radical effects of the victory of populist right-wing parties in parliamentary elections have given new meaning to the term ‘democratic backsliding’ – democracy in the Czech Republic is not under threat...
Arjen Boin, Lavinia Cadar and Maureen Weller
The prospect of transboundary crises forces governments to reassess their crisis management toolbox. In recent years, modern systems have proven frightfully sensitive to disruptions that originated in some unrelated faraway domain. The financial crisis, the flood of immigrants, the threat of cyber warfare – these are all examples of transboundary crises. These crises do not respect borders and create daunting challenges for governance...
Martin Lodge and Nick Sitter
On December 20th, 2017, the European Commission formally posed the Polish Question: Can the EU tolerate that a member state breaches the Union’s fundamental laws and values? At some point in 2018, under the procedure laid down in Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union, the other 27 member states might well be called upon to answer this question; first by a four-fifth majority vote on whether Poland is indeed in ‘clear breach’, and later – if applicable – by unanimity on whether to impose sanctions...
Martin Lodge, Nick Sitter and Kai Wegrich
Back in the post-First World War era, the field of public administration was established to respond to the social upheaval of demilitarization, economic turmoil, expanding electorates, new political parties and labour movements. Similarly, the rise of ‘policy analysis’ was a response to the devastating experiences of the Second World War, and a belief in technocratic solutions and analytical skills provided by ‘wiz kids’...
By Jacint Jordana, IBEI
Over the past few weeks, the Catalan dispute with the Spanish government has attracted international attention. While the non-negotiated referendum on self-determination held in Catalonia on 1 October (1-O), which was forbidden, persecuted and partially blocked by the Spanish executive and judiciary, made the global headlines, this case has been incubating for at least the last five years as tension between these two levels of government in Spain has grown...
By Martin Lodge, carr
The 2017 federal elections in Germany highlight the fragmented nature of German society. Beneath the appearance of stability under Chancellor Merkel, the tectonics of electoral politics seem to have shifted under the challenges of the Euro and refugee crises...
By Femke van Esch, University of Utrecht
The multiple crises the European Union (EU) has faced over the past decade have triggered repeated calls for more strong and visionary EU leadership. Recently, such calls have been replaced by structural plans to fortify the EU’s internal leadership. In his recent State of the Union, for instance, Commission President Juncker proposed to merge the presidencies of the European Commission and European Council for the EU...
By Jacint Jordana, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)
The pro-independence movement in Catalonia has created a singular coalition that includes the beneficiaries of globalization, the elites of a global city, and those left behind by globalization.
There are two large metropolitan areas in Spain: Barcelona and Madrid. While Madrid, with a population of 6.5 million, sits in third place in Europe, after London and Paris, Barcelona is in sixth place, with nearly 5 million. The two are global capitals and compete primarily in a European and international arena, although the tensions between them can be seen as drivers of the current political-territorial dispute in Spain...
By Maja Kluger Dionigi, Think Tank Europa
The EU’s response to the European debt crisis has given rise to executive-dominated politics and a weakening of directly elected institutions, such as national parliaments and the European Parliament (EP). The increase in executive powers has led scholars to criticise the EU for moving towards executive federalism and a state of exception, undermining representative democracy...
Nick Sitter and Ulf Sverdrup
One year after the referendum, after losing its majority in the general election, the UK government is revising what Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson famously labelled the ‘Cake-and-Eat-It’ approach to Brexit. In this context, it might be worth asking if there is anything the UK can learn from Norway’s quarter of a century experience as a ‘quasi-member’ of the European Union...
Daniela Irrera
For the third consecutive year, growing numbers of migrants have been crossing the central Mediterranean to reach the shores of Europe. The European Union (EU) has remained without an effective policy or a common solidarity approach to address this challenge. In the meantime, national coastguards have returned to patrol and monitor at sea in order to rescue people in need...
Nick Sitter
The European Union is fundamentally about power-sharing. The original six member states built a political system based on consensus. It allowed a supranational executive to manage day-to-day policy, but legislation required the consent of most of its members. In practice, this meant unanimity...
Nick Sitter
The danger that one or more member states might give up on liberal democracy and slide back into authoritarianism has haunted the EU ever since its first institutions were designed more than 60 years ago. Only a quarter of the member states had more than 15 years of uninterrupted democracy at their time of joining. The original six members included two recent dictatorships and four countries they had invaded in 1940...
We are writing to draw your attention to the Hungarian government’s current attack on Central European University, one of the partner institutions of the TransCrisis consortium.
As many of you know, CEU is a private university located in Budapest and chartered both in the US (New York) and Hungary. According to the latest QS rankings, the university is ranked 42nd globally in Politics and International Studies...
Lydie Cabane and Martin Lodge (Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, LSE)
EU member states are said to have largely lost their national economic boundary control: contaminated food from one member state can cause death in another member state, competition over regulatory standards can create systemic risks as the financial crisis has highlighted, and asymmetric economic fortunes can lead to migration.
The European Union is traditionally at the heart of dealing with transboundary policy problems...